Hearing loss is generally associated with a loss of hearing sensitivity which is a function of frequency. The most common type of sensitivity loss is an increasing function of frequency. Sensitivity is typically a function of speech level as well. Hence, loud sounds should be amplified less than soft sounds. It has been long known that a hearing aid should treat the various frequency components of speech differently to render them intelligible to a hearing impaired person.
Known analog hearing aids use relatively simple methods to alter their frequency shaping and dynamic range compression to mitigate the loss in hearing sensitivity for frequency and level.